SUPPORT OF SELF-SUPPORTING STUDENTS
Where does the money come from that is necessary to meet the monthly allowances placed to the credit of the self-help students? This is a very practical question and a few thoughts on it may be helpful.
When a farmer employs a man to help him on his farm he expects to pay him from the annual cash income, when the products of the farm are sold. This would naturally be true of the boys who do the farm work at Oak Hill if there was a surplus to sell; but hitherto it has not been sufficient to meet the demands of the boarding department and stock.
It would however not be true of the work of the boys who build fence, clear new land or erect and improve buildings. The product of the labor of these students is a permanent improvement, that increases the value of the land to the owner, and it cannot be sold annually for cash, like the products of the farm.
But the superintendent has to pay cash for the groceries consumed by these students the same as for the others; and when their monthly allowance for labor is transferred to the enrollment or other account book, it represents an item for which some one must furnish him the cash. Where will he get his money? Who will furnish it to him? Manifestly he must look to the owner of the property for it, and the owner in this instance is the Board of Missions for Freedmen. By using tools and implements the student has been trained in their use and the results of his work have become a permanent possession of the Board.
In as much as most permanent improvements do not ordinarily bring any direct annual income to the Board, but serve rather to increase the facilities of the school and provide additional opportunities for self-help, the question arises, "Where does the Board get the money for the support of the self-supporting students?"
The answer to this inquiry is, the Board has to solicit and receive it from the friends of christian education.
This is a very important statement and it is often not very clearly understood. When the actual cost of carrying a student through a seven months term is found to be about $50.00 then that is the lowest amount that will enable the superintendent to carry a vacation worker, as a self-supporting student, through the period of an entire year.
HOW IT WORKS
There are some features of this problem that are quite interesting. The student that does the most for the permanent improvement of the institution that has educated him, commonly called his "Alma Mater," or fostering mother, finds at the time of completing his course, that by that means he has done most for himself, by advancing more rapidly than others in the course of training and study. He has also done something in the way of increasing the facilities for the education and uplift of his race.